Science Teachers Just Wanna Have Fun!

If you ever wondered what your science teacher does for fun on Saturdays, take a look at these teachers playing with their spinning tops and making salt dance to the music of Pink! Thanks to the GPEX Science Collaborative Curriculum Challenge Grant, funded by the Florida Department of Education, 25 teachers of gifted student programs from five Title-I Miami-Dade County Public elementary schools participated in a professional development event using the Museum’s APEX Sience Curriculum (After-school Program Exploring Science). This professional development provided by the Miami Science Museum took place on two Saturdays in January and February. It was designed to provide teachers with hands-on interaction with the APEX Science curriculum materials as well as address the science content and inquiry-based teaching and learning strategies that accompany the inquiry-based program. The gifted program teachers at each of the GPEX Science target schools will use the knowledge they gained at the museum and will work collaboratively in order to adapt and extend the APEX Curriculum to meet the needs of gifted students. This is the second year that the Museum has collaborated with Miami-Dade County Public Schools to provide science training for talented and gifted program teachers; last year’s cohort of teachers represented ten elementary schools throughout the county.